Part 22 (1/2)
Also, the writer had been personally acquainted with the cla.s.s from the beginning, so that they felt reasonably at home with him when he took charge of them in geography and history. After spending two thirty-minute periods with them on successive days, considering various review questions in geography, the writer, acting as teacher, a.s.signed them the following lesson of map questions in the text- book:--
Here is a relief map of the continent on which we live. What great highland do you find in the West? In the East? In what direction does each extend? Which is the broader and higher? Where is the lowest land between these two highlands? Trace the Mississippi River. Name some of its largest tributaries, etc.
This lesson was to be studied in cla.s.s _aloud;_ that is, the writer was not to do any teaching or give any help; he was to a.s.sume as nearly as possible the att.i.tude of a listener, doing nothing more than call upon some one now and then to ”go on” or to ”do what ought to be done next.” The children were to do all that was necessary to dispose of the questions properly, even to the extent of correcting one another freely.
With this understanding a girl was called on to begin. She arose and read, ”Here is a relief map of the continent on which we live. What great highland do you find in the West? In the East?” Then she stopped, and stood staring at the book. She may have needed to inquire the meaning of ”relief”; or she may have been in doubt whether or not she should turn to the relief map opposite, which was small, or to the better map two pages further over; or to the wall map hanging, rolled up, in front of the cla.s.s. But, although she was not noticeably embarra.s.sed, she did none of these things. She waited to be told _just what to do,_ and she waited patiently--until aid from the teacher arrived.
In response to the next question, ”In what direction does each [highland] extend?” the two great highlands, the Rockies and the Appalachians, were described as parallel; and the pupil was pa.s.sing to the next question without objections from any source, when the teacher again had to interfere.
The boy who was called upon for the third question, ”Which is the broader and higher?” stepped to the wall map and pointed out the Rockies. But, as no one asked why they were supposed to be broader and higher, the teacher suggested that question himself. Some one gave the correct reason for considering them the broader; but by that time the entire cla.s.s had forgotten that there was a second part to the question, and were pa.s.sing on when they were reminded by the teacher of the omitted part.
In response to the fourth question, calling for the location of the lowest land between these two highlands, four or five stepped to the map in succession, showing wide disagreement. Yet no one asked any one else ”Why?” or proposed any way of settling the dispute, or even evinced any responsibility for finding one. They would have proceeded to the next question had they not again been halted by the teacher.
In tracing the Mississippi River, only about one-half of it was pointed out; _i.e._, from Cairo southward. But no one entered complaint, and the next question was actually read before the teacher requested more accurate work. The girl called on to ”name some of its largest tributaries” stood silent. Possibly the word tributaries puzzled her; but she lacked the force necessary to make a request for help. She seemed to be waiting for the teacher to ask her if she didn't need to ask some one else for the definition. So the teacher complied and the definition was given. But then all failed for a time to answer the original question, apparently because they could not break it into its two parts, first tracing the princ.i.p.al tributaries on the map, then finding the names attached to them.
These responses are representative of the writer's earlier experiences with these children. Although they were not frightened, and plainly understood that they were to go anywhere in the room, and were to do or say anything that was necessary, they almost invariably waited to be told when to step to the board; when an answer was wrong; when something had been overlooked or forgotten; when the pointer should be taken up or laid aside; and when they were through with a question.
Between three and four recitation periods of thirty-five minutes each were consumed, before they were able to do all that was necessary in answering the extremely simple questions above, with a half-dozen more, without help. Their frequent smiles of chagrin, too, proved beyond question that they were fully in earnest in their efforts. This helplessness was not exhibited on the first few days either. It was their custom to wait for a.s.sistance and directions--even to sit down--and it was a custom so well established that five weeks of daily work with them in history and geography, with the avowed object of breaking it up, only barely began a reform.
Other children, as a rule, would scarcely do better. But these are cases of children. Would not a cla.s.s in a normal school or a college show greater capacity for leaders.h.i.+p? Not often. Of course they possess greater mental power; but the subject-matter with which they are struggling is more difficult. Any teacher of such a cla.s.s who unexpectedly eliminates himself from a recitation by silence, and who asks the students to provide a subst.i.tute from within themselves for his part of the work, is likely to feel disappointed over the result.
Who will a.s.sert that such lack of initiative is natural?
_5. The evil effects of such suppression._
How docile young people are, after all, in intellectual matters! They lack the courage to resent neglect in cla.s.s, to acknowledge that they do not understand, and to ask questions; they lose their initiative and even independent power to think, when in the presence of teachers; and they ignore their own experience in favor of print. They are so bent on satisfying others that they suppress their own inner promptings. In doing this they seem to confuse moral with intellectual qualities, acting as though the sacrifice of self in study was equally virtuous with its sacrifice in a moral way. Yet listen to Emerson's warning:--
”Books” (and he might have said _teachers_) ”are the best of things well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is ent.i.tled to; this every man contains within him, although in almost all men obstructed, and as yet unborn....Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments.” [Footnote: _The American Scholar._]
The evil in a young student's being ”subdued by his instruments” is that he is made artificial and dependent, and thereby ceases to be a whole unit. The artificiality is often shown in the voice. Many schools, owing to the restraint that their pupils are allowed to feel, are guilty of establis.h.i.+ng a special recitation voice, distinguished from that ordinarily used in conversation by its different pitch, and often amusingly distinguished, too, when some interruption during recitation causes a question about outside or home matters to be answered in the natural way. Many educated adults have suffered so much in this respect that they cannot read in natural tones.
The dependence, further, is shown in any attempt to produce thought.
When a student has formed the habit of collecting and valuing the ideas of others, rather than his own, the self becomes dwarfed from neglect and buried under the ma.s.s of borrowed thought. He may then pa.s.s good examinations, but he cannot think. Distrust of self has become so deep-rooted that he instinctively looks away from himself to books and friends for ideas; and anything that he produces cannot be good, because it is not a true expression of self. This is the cla.s.s of people that Mill describes in the words, ”They like in crowds; they exercise choice only among things commonly done; peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes; until, by dint of not following their own nature, they have no nature to follow; their human capacities are withered and starved; they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their own.”
[Footnote: _On Liberty,_ Chapter III] Such people cannot perform the hard tasks required in study, because they have lost their native power to react on the ideas presented.
The evil is most serious with young children because of their youth.
Many of them, while making good progress in the three R's, outgrow their tendency to ask questions and to raise objections, in other words lose their mental boldness or originality, by the time they have attended school four years. But all along, from the kindergarten to the college, there is almost a likelihood that the self will be undermined while acquiring knowledge, and that, in consequence, one will become permanently weakened while supposedly being educated. In this respect it is dangerous to attend a school of any grade.
_Why individuality is so difficult to preserve and develop._
”Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each,” says Emerson, ”the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is that they set at naught books and tradition, and spoke not what men, but what they, thought.” [Footnote: Essay of _Self-reliance._] It is evidently exceptional for one's thoughts and actions to be quite fully one's own. In matters of dress hosts of persons would rather be fas.h.i.+onable than comfortable; and in matters of the intellect subordination to others is even more common.
One great reason for this is that people do not know how to be true to themselves; they do not comprehend themselves well enough for that.
”Know thyself” was a dictum of Socrates that should precede the command ”Be true to thyself,” because it is a prerequisite to it. But if it takes a literary genius to reveal our thoughts to us, as it often does, certainly the average person will not discover his own characteristics alone. Even with firm intentions he will merely grope about, and from blindness and want of skill will stifle a good portion of his own nature.
On the other hand, if he goes to school, whatever peculiarities he may possess are liable to suppression through the teacher and the curriculum, the two chief agencies of the school. For the average elementary teacher is not greatly concerned about preserving and developing individuality, and the average high-school teacher or college professor still less. Indeed, many teachers are convinced that there is too much of it already, as shown in the discipline, and insist upon as much uniformity as possible, because it is less troublesome. When it comes to the curriculum, the commonly recognized purpose of instruction is acquisition of knowledge rather than development of self. But if a student sets out to ama.s.s as much information as possible, he is almost sure to be covered up by his collection; and, even if he proceeds slowly enough to admire and try to imitate the good that he finds in his spiritual inheritance and present environment, he is in no less danger of being mastered by his instruments. Thus it happens that while self-expression should be one of the great purposes of the school, annihilation of self is a common outcome.
_The positive character of provision for individuality as a factor in study._